1979.

The common internet is a few years ahead of time and this city of sin is the first to computerize its masses; never mind the dirty politics and social engineering, what that sounds like is the perfect pitch for a contemplative cop-drama, neo-noir pixels and Retrowave.

Crime Code – Short Dynamic Trailer. Noir, Detective and Pixels#Trailer #GameDevelopers #indiedev #pixelart pic.twitter.com/2R3WdjO9s7

— // Crime Code GAME (@Cr1me_C0de) March 25, 2018

Detective-sim, rather. The first trailer to Crime Code is brilliantly compiled and warrants more than a few casual glances; partly because the game is still a bit of a social media enigma with not much in the way of its nitty-gritty made known.

It seems though that one must –

• Hack into the dirty-dealings of an alternative Chicago using an intricate cyberspace The developer calls it his psychological approach to hacking that capitalizes on the human disposition.

• Investigate multiple cases across the very same alternative Chicago by cleverly co-relating, blackmailing, deceiving and communicating with personalities as prudency would. 

We also have our OS 🙂 pic.twitter.com/AUYIbIV692

— // Crime Code GAME (@Cr1me_C0de) February 27, 2018

What the trailer briefly teases of an underlying plot is accompanied with multiple snippets of the game’s hacking/investigation/gameplay mechanics in flashes.

Characters are more than avatars here, each with its own background of assorted vices that players may choose to phish, ring up on-phone, or threaten with.

Consider it plausible for your suspect to respond to a job-offer than an anonymous date? Know of a relative’s address worthy of impersonation or of a personal situation that you can wipe away for them? Perhaps you’d like to not interfere and stick to their cookies/logs/browser history.

// Crime Code – gameplay #game #hacking #pixelart #code #crime_code pic.twitter.com/ea5vDj1a9E

— // Crime Code GAME (@Cr1me_C0de) February 13, 2018

All very doable. The vision however isn’t to spoon-feed the plethora of these options to the player but rather, have them rely on a considerable amount of wit in carving their own through the primary narrative.

For this in-game operating systems, websites and distractions have been crafted by the developer in very believable a fashion. Thankfully you’ll have to your disposal notebooks, a work-table, maps and a cassette-player you can play some synths on now and then.

Crime Code’s Twitter hints at a Kickstarter campaign later this year.

https://twitter.com/Cr1me_C0de/status/966796116040867840